"You know, I'm sick of following my dreams, man. I'm just going to ask where they're going and hook up with 'em later."

Monday, November 14, 2016

Albums2010 #84: High Times

I feel like this might be cheating ever-so-slightly, but I also don't care. Technically, when I started this whole 'listen to 100 albums' thing about six years ago now, I wanted to listen to albums and sort of excluded Greatest Hits/Singles/Compilation albums, but for this one I made an exception.

First of all, I was somewhat surprised to learn that Jamiroquai is a band and not a person. They're fronted by their lead singer Jay Kay and Wikipedia describes them as a "British funk and acid jazz band." I have no earthly idea what acid jazz is (I've tried to dig on some Miles Davis and I just... I can't. I can't get into it. I'm not sure why. I feel like there is something slightly wrong with me) but if that's what Jamiroquai is, I'm down.

The tracks I know are here and well represented, but it's the ones that I hadn't heard before that stand out. 'Deeper Underground' is a striking departure from the funk/jazz/soul/R&B feel of the entire album- it's darker and grittier... funky, but nasty. I dug it. 'Little L' and 'Love Foolosophy' are nice funky tracks that seemed to stick in my head a little more than the others. There really wasn't a dud on this album and to be honest, I'd happily throw this album on again and again. It's funky, it's smooth, it's right in my wheelhouse.

Overall: funky, smooth and excellent, taking a deep dive into the music of Jamiroquai was a ride worth taking. I honestly loved every track on this album and I think I'm honestly going to save it as it's own playlist in my Spotify library. It's that good. I don't know what got me into funk/R&B or whatever you want to call it, but Jamiroquai has found a place in my rotation. Probably on a permanent basis.